National Hockey League (NHL) Eastern Conference Play-offs Match Preview Roundup for Friday April.15
While entering Game 2, there are high expectations from teams who suddenly surged their performances in a highly unanticipated manner. All predictions went down the drain when teams supposed to be easily thrown out of the quarterfinals turned out victorious
in the first games.
There are four games schedules to take place on Friday against teams who played their first of the postseason on Wednesday.
Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
Even though Pittsburgh started the postseason without two of its major players, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, it managed to change its strategy into a defensive-attacking rather than an offensive-attacking.
There are not many teams who can do this and pull it off like Penguins did in Game 1 when Tampa Bay was shutout by 3-0.
Tampa Bay has no excuse. With a healthy line-up and a squad full of extremely talented players, showing Pittsburgh a hard time should be Lightning’s top priority.
One of Lightning’s top scorer, Martin St. Louis, had three of his teeth broken on Wednesday after taking a stick to the face from defenseman, Zbynek Michalek.
Following this incident, St. Louis vowed not to lose in the next game, not because of the hit but because of the embarrassment involved.
"I'm not going to let my emotions get the better of me and hurt my team", St. Louis said. "We've talked among ourselves. We know what we have to rectify. And I know we'll come out and play a strong game".
According to most critics, the series is not going to depend on offense as once thought. Both teams will be fighting with their defensive ends as goalies, Dwayne Roloson and Marc-Andre Fleury, are at the peak of their form.
Roloson might not be on the same level as Fleury, but he has the offensive advantage on his side.
Pittsburgh has the home-ice advantage in the next game as it will host Tampa Bay again on Friday at the CONSOL Energy Center for Game 2, prior to taking off to Lightning’s hometown for Game 3.
New York Rangers vs. Washington Capitals
Washington is a great team and has shown real progress in its first quarterfinal game of the playoffs, but its victory against New York Rangers might not have come as easy as thought since Alexander Semin lifted Rangers to victory in overtime.
Capitals’ defensemen, Karl Alzner, helped his team majorly which most people might not have noticed.
He managed to get in the way of over eight shot attempts which might sound easy but ask Alzner,
"To me, it is", he replied. "It might sound weird, but I pride myself on doing that -- and not being afraid to just dive in front of one".
Rangers’ coach, John Tortorella, stressed the need for taking more chances at the net and trying for more opportunities in a press conference after the match.
When playing as the eighth seed against conference leaders, taking risks is all that a team has to count on for winning, added Tortorella.
Washington has top level expectations for the post-season since being knocked out in the first round last year, it has continued to improve its game in unorthodox ways.
Winning in overtime is not enough for Capitals. They need to take an early lead and maintain it throughout the contest.
Being kicked out by the last qualifying team would imply that the amount of hard work put in by the team this season was for nothing and utterly useless.
Capitals look forward to playing much harder when they host Rangers again on Friday for Game 2 of the conference quarter-finals.
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